Zéro Gravité

For Patrick Lévesque and Éric Aubut, free time meant a trek to the nearest climbing centre to practice their favourite sport. The problem was, the area’s only climbing centre was across town. Since the sport had begun drawing larger and larger crowds, after the trek down, the two would spend more time waiting for a turn than scaling the walls.

The two long-time friends happened to be on the hunt for a business idea, and while the long lines to climb weren’t much fun, they gave the duo the inkling that an opportunity might be lurking. Soon the hunt was on for a large vacant space in a convenient location that could house the city’s first centrally-located climbing facility.

Their search led them to an old theatre for sale in Montreal’s Plateau Mont-Royal neighbourhood, with towering ceilings and 7000 square feet of space. The building was ideal, but unfortunately the price just wasn’t right, so the two launched another business, an organic grocery store, which they ran in the meantime. Still holding on to their hopes of launching a climbing centre, by mid-2013 the theatre they’d set their sights on still hadn’t found a buyer and the price had dropped. Éric  and Patrick founded Zéro Gravité Escalade & Yoga in July 2013, one of the only interior rock climbing centres in downtown Montreal.